


Trade Mistakes

by restless (cabinfever)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural, Angst, Demons, Hell, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-28
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 05:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/820384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabinfever/pseuds/restless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam had left an hour ago after a long, searing kiss and tearful goodbye. He’d said that he was sorry that this had to happen. Zayn had said he was sorry for selling his soul to Satan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trade Mistakes

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the Panic! At the Disco song of the same name. It's a Supernatural AU setting. Enjoy!

“Let me take his place,” Liam begged, heart dropping at the amused look in her red eyes.

She cocked a black-clad hip. “Sweetie, Zayn Malik has had it in for him for a long time. We’ve been waiting a long time for a soul like his.”

Liam grabbed her by the shoulders, and her smile turned sickly sweet. “I am promising you my soul. My clean, pure soul, free of any charge.”

The demon raised a single finger in smug protest. “I beg to differ, boy. You want to save Zayn. That’s not a [freebie](http://theundiscloseddesires.tumblr.com/post/43200441710/trade-mistakes).”

“Would you rather have a whole soul to corrupt or a damaged one?” And though it pained Liam to say it, he knew that Zayn was flawed, that he’d lost his temper in a drunken rage and beaten a cowering Liam. But still, Liam would rather it be him than Zayn.

She seemed to ponder that for a moment, weighing the options in her head. “The boss downstairs won’t appreciate this too much,” she mused, “but I suppose he’ll forgive me when he sees the catch I’ve netted.” She checked her watch, looking up at him with wide scarlet eyes. “11:57, darling. Now or never.”

*          *          *

Zayn Malik sat in the too-silent house, watching the grandfather clock in the living room.

11:57.

Liam had left an hour ago after a long, searing kiss and tearful goodbye. He’d said that he was sorry that this had to happen.

Zayn had said he was sorry for selling his soul to Satan.

Liam had left after that.

Zayn couldn’t blame him, honestly. He was disgusted with himself, and he couldn’t help but think that Liam probably was too.

All he’d wanted was to get his voice back.

In the fourth year of One Direction, Zayn had gotten sick. Nothing too big at first, just requiring that he rest his voice because it hurt to talk. Then it had progressed to him not even being able to speak.

They called them nodes or polyps something, abnormal growths that were choking his vocal cords. A surgery to remove them would destroy Zayn’s voice, and his career by association. That would also mean the end of Zayn’s days in the boy band that ruled the world.

The boys knew. They all did.

They’d had a group meeting, [complete](http://theundiscloseddesires.tumblr.com/post/43200441710/trade-mistakes) with all members of their management, Simon included. And the other four had come to a conclusion that after Zayn’s surgery, One Direction would disband.

That couldn’t happen. Zayn had protested. They were giving up their lives, their fame, their potential, all because Zayn couldn’t sing anymore. He’d fought them; begged them to change their minds, but all of them were adamant. It was five of them or none of them.

And Zayn couldn’t take it. In the night, after furtive research on his laptop, he’d taken the supplies that he’d read that he needed and gone. It was hard to find a crossroads in the middle of urban Englad, but he eventually found one a few kilometers from the city limits.

_A tin with his ID and a few little animal bones was shoved beneath the dark gravel of the road, covered with dirt by shaking hands._

_“What is it?” she’d purred, looking disturbingly familiar. “I know you, Zayn Malik. You’re a hot topic where I’m from.”_

_“I bet,” he’d replied, trying to mask the shivers of fear running down his spine._

_She’d walked up to him, too close, and brushed a red-painted fingernail down his cheek. “You didn’t come here for small talk, Malik. You want a deal,” she teased._

_“My voice,” he said, the rasp behind his words the only evidence the demon needed. “I need it.”_

_“The traditional deal, I assume?” she asked, a smirk on her face. “That gorgeous gray soul of yours for about, say…a year more of singing like an angel.”_

_“A year?” Zayn asked, heart plummeting. “That’s it?”_

_She tapped a phantom watch on her wrist. “Souls like yours are in high demand, sweetheart,” she told him, glee in her voice._

_“Like what?” he spat back._

_She was in his face. “Impressionable,” she’d hissed, the word like a snake’s whisper. “Easy to turn.”_

_He swallowed, watching her move back and circle him again, her presence sending chills down his spine. “You can’t give more than a year?” he asked, knowing that asking was futile._

_She laughed, “Nice try, sweetie, but this is it.”_

_Zayn followed her movements, heart pounding as she drew close. “Seal the deal,” she purred._

_Zayn took her face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers, and he felt her smirk against him. Triumph, he guessed, for buying another soul._

_He had been damned._

*          *          *

The clock’s hand ticked the final millimeter to 12, and the clock rang out the hour. Each loud chime vibrated through Zayn’s chest, terrifying him in the finality of it all. He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting to hear the dogs howling for his blood. He could feel his pulse racing between his fingerbone and the chair, frenzied in terror. He prepared himself to die.

Liam…

A final peal of the bells, once so beautiful but now so empty, so malignant.

He drew in another breath.

Another.

Silence.

There was nothing. Just the ticks of the clock as it went about counting in the next day. Zayn should’ve been dead by now. The hellhounds should’ve come.

He opened his eyes. Yes, the clock was just past midnight, one year from when he’d made the deal. But there was nothing. The visions of demons that had plagued him for the past two days had disappeared, the hellish voices gone from his mind.

Had hell forgotten him?

He laughed, somehow out of the sheer relief of it all. He’d evaded it somehow, had gotten off the hook for what he’d done. And maybe it was a miracle, but Zayn had never been one to believe in blessings.

It was a beautiful concept, survival.

He reached over and dialed in the number he knew so well.

“ _Hi, this is Liam. I can’t come to the phone right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you. Thanks!”_

“Hey, Li, you don’t have to worry. It’ll be alright, I swear.”

*          *          *

It took two days for Zayn to realize that maybe Liam wasn’t coming back.

*          *          *

It took another day for him to call the police.

*          *          *

It was on the sixth day that he realized, the rudest awakening he’d ever gotten, and the last time he bothered to cry.

*          *          *

“Mr. Malik, you are listed as Liam Payne’s next of kin in case of emergency. Can you confirm that this is you?” Brusqueness, professionalism.

“Yeah, it is. What’s this about?” Wariness, worry.

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but we’ve found Liam.” Tentativeness, delicacy.

“…How is that bad news?” Fear, despair.

“Liam’s body was found this morning.”

Emptiness.

Hatred.

Hysteria.

 _Liam_.

*          *          *

Liam Payne screamed on the rack, trying to break the metal bonds on his wrists that held him in place. The knife twisted in his leg, tearing skin and cracking bone, an agony that couldn’t be erased.

It was the same every time. Same pain, different place, different way it was inflicted. But it was the same old song and dance now.

He lay panting, watching as the wounds knit themselves back together and his severed hands reattached themselves. It was over for the day, over until tomorrow.

“What do you say, Payne?” a smooth voice purred, and he tried to pull away from the lips at his ear. “It’s been a year, if you’re counting it like upstairs. You’ve been here for one hundred twenty years…and still you resist.”

He tried to twist away, spitting blood in the face of the demon. “Fuck off, Alastair,” he growled. “I’d sooner die than say yes.”

Alastair’s face pulled into a smile. “But you’re already dead, so it’s only a matter of time,” he singsonged in Liam’s ear. “Soon I’ll have you, my little angel,” he crooned. “Every man is flawed; it just takes a little bit to get the nut to crack.”

“Never.”

He laughed. “We’ll see.”

*          *          *

Liam lasted another ten years, if it was counted in earth time. But really, it was a thousand.

But he broke.

Just like Alastair had said.

And it was beautiful, the fall.

*          *          *

There it was, that familiar pull at his very being, at that blackness that lay inside. Liam put down the wineglass, sighing in annoyance. He honestly couldn’t have a few days to himself without somebody wanting to sell their soul.

He straightened the lapels on the fine suit he wore, straightening a barely existent wrinkle – appearance was everything, after all – before he headed to the door of the apartment that was his own, disappearing into the night.

A quick step through space was of little concern for a demon. It was only a matter of blinking and he was where he wanted to be. He saw the familiar crossroads that had been claimed as his, catching the familiar sight of the desperate human just waiting for salvation from the wrong kind of angels.

“You want a deal,” he told the man who stood there. Of course he did; why else would he have summoned Liam?

The man still didn’t turn around. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, and Liam caught a glimpse of something vaguely familiar on the back of his right hand. “I want to bring someone back,” he muttered, voice raspy. “You can do that, right?”

Liam smirked. Men were so naïve. “I can do more things than you could count,” he countered. “All for a nice little sum.”

“My soul,” the dark-haired man replied. “I’m aware.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Familiar to the circuit?”

A dry laugh came from the man. “You could say that, yeah.”

“Bring someone back and I give you ten years of bliss with them, how’s that sound?” Liam proposed, walking towards the stiff body before him. “Who is it that you want?”

The human sighed, weariness oozing from his soul. “My boyfriend. He was my life, and he gave his life for me when I didn’t deserve to be saved.”

Liam rolled his eyes. A love story. “Let me guess, he jumped in front of a bullet for you?”

“No.” The man turned around, revealing the vague familiarity of tanned skin and amber eyes with long lashes. “He sold his soul.”

Liam recognized him in a flash then, recalling a crossroads of his own, ages before when he’d been weak and human and had succumbed to the call of what he’d thought was love. This was the reason for his damnation.

“Zayn.”

This was the reason for the eons of hell, the decades and centuries of torture that had twisted him out of the mold of humanity and had turned him into a monster.

This was the reason he’d held out for so long.

Maybe something stirred in his blackened, twisted soul, recalling the love that had been genuine. Maybe he remembered every reason why he’d adored this human called Zayn Malik.

But he left too quickly to admit it.

Regret didn’t just rest with Zayn Malik, it seemed.


End file.
